CAMDEN, Ohio — After living in 13 different places and serving in the Middle East, George and Valerie Glaze settled on a 20-acre farm when George retired after 30 years in the Army. Neither has a farm background, and the learning curve is steep.
They don’t call their place a hobby farm; it is too much work to be a hobby, George Glaze said. "It’s a lot of work because we don’t have the systems up yet," he said. "We didn’t learn it at a younger age, so we’re learning it on the go.
"For instance, the water freezes, so every morning in the winter you’re going out and breaking the ice for the chickens, the turkeys, carrying five-gallon buckets. Since then we bought some tanks, and we’re now going to have them out there so it will be 55 gallons of water instead of just five gallons."
To learn about farming, the Glazes went to a couple of Mother Earth New conferences, attended Ohio State University extension classes to learn about rotational grazing and visited Joel Salatin’s Polyface, Inc. (Polyface is a family owned, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm).
"We would ultimately like to have a kind of rest and recuperation for soldiers," Glaze said. "We’re connected to the Veterans Administration here in Dayton. We’d like to have some wounded visitors come over and stay with us, whether it is a day visit or a weekend. They could bring their family, and they could interact with the animals.
"We’re finding a lot of veterans are turning to farming after coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. I had a couple of tours in Iraq, and so coming back and connecting with the earth and making a life at it, connecting with the community, it is all peaceful and it is rewarding."
After they had moved to their farm, the Glazes planted orchard grass and red and white clover. They want to farm sustainably. "So that the pigs make pigs and the chickens make chickens," he said.
"We move the pigs on the field and they root up the grass and eat the roots and that kind of thing. I know they’re not ruminants, but they definitely love moving around on the ground. We have paddocks for the sheep, and we move them around for intensive grazing management."
Most of the critters are heritage breeds. They have about 100 chickens, breeds such as Buff Orpingtons, Golden Comets, Barred Rocks and a couple of guineas. They also have 15 St. Croix hair sheep and Mangalitsa pigs, which have a hairy coat. Their meat, sometimes referred to as the "Kobe beef of pork," is more red and marbled than commercial pork. Bourbon red turkeys gobble from a pen.
Although it is a lot of work, the Glazes are having fun. They told how they prepared for chicks, bought an incubator and brooder, then watched as the mama hen came out of the woods with 16 little chicks under her.
"That was hilarious," Glaze said. "We were like, the nerve of that chicken, to go on and do it by herself! But that is the kind of fun that we’re having in this farming; it is just rewarding."
Their next step is to get involved with a farmers’ market. For Glaze’s retirement, the couple bought an M715 Army Jeep. They want to take it to the markets with a camouflage net and field table.
"You’ll come get army eggs from us, fresh from the field," he said. "I would like to get a mom or a spouse of a soldier that is deployed to come over and talk not only about eggs and farming and chickens, but about their son deployed and about all of these outreach groups and a support network. That is where we’re heading."
